52. 6. Jehovah himself - that is, the Lord - spoke the Word through prophets.

We read of the prophets that they had visions and that Jehovah talked with them. When they had visions, they were not focused on their bodies but on the spirit, in which state they saw things of a heavenly nature. When Jehovah talked with them, though, they were conscious of their bodies and heard Jehovah speaking.

We need to draw a clear distinction between these two states. In a visionary state, the eyes of their spirit were open and the eyes of their body were closed; and at such times they seemed to themselves to be taken from place to place while their bodies stayed where they were. Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel were in this state at times, and so was John when he wrote the Book of Revelation. They were then said to be in a vision or in the spirit. In fact, Ezekiel says,

The spirit lifted me up and brought me back into Chaldea, to the captivity, in a vision from God, in the spirit of God. In this way the vision that I saw came over me. (Ezekiel 11:1, 24)

He says that the spirit lifted him up and that he heard an earthquake and other things behind him (Ezekiel 3:12, 14). He also said that the spirit lifted him up between earth and heaven and took him off into Jerusalem in visions from God, and he saw abominations (Ezekiel 8:3 and following).

That is why (again in a vision of God or in the spirit) Ezekiel saw the four beasts that were angel guardians (chapters 1; 10), and he saw a new earth and a new temple with the angel measuring them, as we are told in chapters 40-48. He says in chapter 40:2, that he was then in visions from God; and in chapter 43:5, he says that the spirit lifted him up at that time.

The same thing happened with Zechariah. There was an angel inwardly present with him when he saw a man riding among myrtle trees (Zechariah 1:8 and following); when he saw four horns and then a man with a measuring line in his hand (Zechariah 1:18; 2:1); when he saw Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1 and following); when he saw a lampstand and two olive trees (Zechariah 4:1 and following); when he saw a flying scroll and a measuring basket (Zechariah 5:1, 6); and when he saw four chariots coming from between two mountains, along with horses (Zechariah 6:1 and following).

Daniel was in the same kind of state when he saw four beasts come up from the sea (Daniel 7:3) and when he saw battles between a ram and a goat (Daniel 8:1 and following).

We read in Daniel 7:1-2, 7, 13; 8:2; 10:1, 7-8 that he saw these things in visions. We read in Daniel 9:21 that he saw the angel Gabriel in a vision and talked with him.

Much the same happened with John when he wrote the Book of Revelation. He says that he was in the spirit on the Lord’s day (Revelation 1:10), that he was carried away in the spirit into the wilderness (17:3), to a high mountain in the spirit (21:10), that he saw horses in a vision (9:17), and elsewhere that he saw what he described, being therefore in the spirit or in a vision (1:2; 4:1; 5:1; 6:1; and in the particular chapters that follow).

5. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John. This symbolizes the things that have been revealed by the Lord through heaven to people who possess goodness of life arising from charity and its accompanying faith.

"He sent and signified it by His angel" means, in the spiritual sense, things that have been revealed by the Lord from heaven or through heaven. For in the Word an angel frequently means the angelic heaven, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself. That is because no angel ever speaks with a person in dissociation from heaven, for each has such a conjunction with all the rest there that everyone speaks in accord with the communion, even though the angel is not conscious of it.

In the Lord's sight, in fact, heaven is as a single person, whose soul is the Lord Himself. Therefore the Lord speaks with a person through heaven, as a person does from his soul through his body in speaking with another. And this the person does in conjunction with each and every part of his mind, at whose center are the things that he is saying. But this secret cannot be explained in a few words. We have explained it in part in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom.

In the highest sense the Lord is meant by an angel because heaven is not heaven in consequence of the angels' own qualities, but owing to the Lord's Divinity from which they have their love and wisdom, indeed their life. It is on this account that in the Word the Lord is Himself called an angel.

It is apparent from this that the angel did not of himself speak with John, but that the Lord did so by means of heaven through the angel.

[2] As for saying that this statement means that these things have been revealed to people who possess goodness of life arising from charity and its accompanying faith, that is because it is they who are meant by John. For by the Lord's twelve disciples or apostles are meant all in the church who possess truths arising from goodness, and in an abstract sense, all constituents of the church. By Peter are meant all who are governed by faith, and abstractly, faith itself. By James are meant those who are impelled by charity, and abstractly, charity itself. And by John are meant those who possess goodness of life arising from charity and its accompanying faith, and abstractly, the resulting goodness of life itself. That these are what are meant by John, James and Peter in the Gospels may be seen in the short work The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (London, 1758), no. 122.

[3] Now because goodness of life arising from charity and its accompanying faith is what forms the church, therefore it was through the apostle John that secrets were revealed concerning the state of the church, the secrets that are contained in his visions.

The fact that the names of persons and places in the Word all symbolize things having to do with heaven and the church is something we showed many times in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), also published in London.

It can be seen from this that the phrase, "He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John," means, in the spiritual sense, the things that have been revealed by the Lord through heaven to people who possess goodness of life arising from charity and its accompanying faith. For charity produces goodness through faith, and not charity by itself or faith by itself.